During wash and rinse cycles, dishwasher appliances generally circulate a fluid through a wash chamber over articles, such as pots, pans, silverware, etc. The fluid can be, e.g., various combinations of water and detergent during the wash cycle or water (which may include additives) during the rinse cycle. Typically, the fluid is circulated during a given cycle using a pump. Fluid is collected at or near the bottom of the wash chamber and pumped back into the wash chamber through, e.g., nozzles in spray arms and other openings that direct the fluid against the articles to be cleaned or rinsed.
Depending upon the level of soil on the articles, fluids used during wash and rinse cycles will become contaminated with soils in the form of debris or particles that are carried with the fluid. In order to protect the pump and recirculate the fluid through the wash chamber, it is beneficial to filter the fluid so that relatively clean fluid is applied to the articles in the wash chamber and materials are removed or reduced from the fluid supplied to the pump.
For mechanical filtration, the selectivity of the filter to remove soil particles of different sizes is typically determined by providing fluid paths (such as pores or apertures) through filter media that are smaller than the particles for which filtration is desired. Particles having a dimension larger than the width of the fluid paths will be trapped or prevented from passing through the filter media while particles smaller than the width of the fluid path will generally pass through. Certain particle sizes and/or types may be not harmful to the pump or spray assemblies and, therefore, can be allowed to pass into the pump inlet. However, while some smaller particles may not be harmful to the pump, leaving such particles in the wash or rinse fluid may not be acceptable as these particles may become deposited on the articles being washed/rinsed and thereby affect the user's perception of the cleanliness and/or appearance.
While larger particles can generally be readily removed from the fluid circulated through the wash chamber, challenges are presented in removing smaller particles—particularly as the particle size targeted for removal decreases. For example, if a dishwashing appliance is provided with a fine particle filter—such as one for removing particles 200 microns or larger—the filter can be prone to clogging particularly during the early stages of the cleaning process. During a pre-wash cycle or early stage of a wash cycle, a greater amount of larger food particles may be present on the articles placed in the wash chamber. A fine particle filter—such as one for removing particles 200 microns are larger—may become substantially clogged.
To unclog the filter, a conventional approach has been to drain the dirty fluid from the wash chamber to remove the particles clogging the filter. New—i.e. clean fluid—is then reintroduced for cycling again. Depending on the level of soil still present on the articles, yet another cycle of draining and refilling may have to be repeated. Unfortunately, this run, drain, and refill approach for unclogging a filter is inefficient as it requires the use of additional fluid (i.e. water). Of course, a filter media can be selected that only captures larger particles so that it clogs less, such as e.g., 0.030″ or larger, but this comes at the expense of losing the ability to remove smaller particles from the fluid and an associated effect on the resulting cleanliness of the articles.
Accordingly, a dishwasher appliance having filtering system for the removal of particles from the wash fluid would be useful. More particularly, a method for operating a dishwasher appliance with steps for reducing or preventing clogging of a filtering system would be useful.